Dark Souls
by redtrouble
Summary: The Kalach-Cha Cara Bayle has become the spiriteater, but the true source of her suffering is the loss of her friends and the man she loves. Or is there a way to get him back?


**Notes: **This fic includes moments from the NWN2 Original Campaign romance mod by Gibberlings 3 and is partially based on the Mask of the Betrayer mod Dark Souls by Gingery (check out the Gibberlings 3 website and the NWN2 Vault for more information).

* * *

**I.**

The fire crackled and popped in the silence of the night and she stared at the dancing flames as though mesmerized. Her lavender eyes were like pale amethysts in the light, skin a soft orange in the glow, and her red hair was jagged around her jaw and tangled on her head. She was nowhere near as beautiful as he—and so unkempt—but he could not stop looking at her.

At that expression frozen on her face.

Safiya was sleeping silently beside them and Okku snored softly nearby. The wilds of Rashemen rustled with evening conversation, crickets chirping and night-birds singing and critters scampering here and there. He, too, should have been among the sleepers and dreamers, but he could not bear to walk the dreams when hers were not there to stumble into. So he watched her until she finally noticed.

"Are you thinking of your friends?" he asked before she could say anything.

"I miss them," she replied. "I wonder how they're doing. I wonder if they made it out of the Mere alive."

"What do you believe?"

"That they are alive. That I will see them again."

**II.**

They were in the Dreamscape when they came upon the Wall. She was slowly walking toward it, hesitant, and he couldn't blame her. The Wall was terrifying. The figure protruding from it was just as horrific, limbs broken, twisted, and frozen into unnatural positions and covered in the plague mold that coated the Wall, brown sludge quivering as it slowly—very slowly—encased him more and more.

"C..ra…" came the hoarse whisper. "Ca…ra…" It was a moan of pain, so faint that for a moment neither of them knew where it came from.

They came close enough to see his face, that small part of it still visible, and were unnerved to look upon it. The expression he wore was a grimace of eternal pain, mouth gaping as though gasping for air, drowning in this sludge. The color in his flesh and skin had faded, as though sucked out of him along with his life-force. The man's eyes—pale eyes, one completely white—twitched in their direction, but they did not look at him… they looked at her.

She suddenly froze beside him. He felt her flinch and then there was an eruption of emotion that momentarily overwhelmed him. And then she was screaming and running.

"Bishop!" she cried. "Bishop! What happened? What have they done to you?"

She does something he would never have done: she touches the Wall, touches the figure. She is grabbing at ropes of sludge and pulling, twisting, yanking! There are tears in her eyes, tears streaming down her face.

"Bishop! I'm going to get you out of here! Just hold on!"

"Don't…" he coughs. "I made my bed… I'll lie in it…"

"No! No, you didn't! I forgave you! I _forgive_ you! Please… Help me!"

She is speaking to him now, but he can't help her. He won't touch the Wall. It terrifies him in ways he doesn't understand. So he just stands there as she claws at the mold, and for every chunk she tears away another rope of sludge replaces it.

"Cara," Bishop says quietly. "Don't…"

"Help me!" she screams, fresh tears pouring out of her eyes.

He stands there dumbly. "You know this man." It was a statement, not a question, and she does not answer. _He_ does. Bishop does. For a moment, the man looks at him with all the hatred of the Rashemi combined and multiplied, and he does not understand.

"Who is he?" he asks her. "Have you found the paladin's replacement already?"

"Gods damn it, Bishop!" she shouts. "You always saw something that wasn't there and you _know_ it! Don't do this! Not now!" And then she turns and looks at him, and screams, "_Help me_!"

But he can't move. And she won't stop digging futilely into the lumps, lumps that quiver like soft fat and drip in thick splotches like mud.

"Where is good ole Casavir, anyway?"

"I don't know!"

"Well if I see him in the Wall, I'll give him your best. We'll chat about old times… trade tales about our fickle, swamp wench!"

He wonders how this man could speak to her like that, and why she would let him. But still she tries to free him, locking her hands around a thick rope of sludge that stretches across him like a gelatinous tree branch, and as strong as a branch, too, for she braces one foot against the Wall and puts all of her weight into the tug. She grunts with the strain, eyes shut tight, and finally it breaks free. She stumbles and he moves to catch her, but she catches her own balance and runs back to the wall, to Bishop.

Suddenly the Wall shudders, convulses, and there is a horrific snap of bones as Bishop is sucked deeper into the Wall, his screams of pain nearly overtaking the crunch of breaking bones. She screams, too, momentarily paralyzed by the horror. Mold crawls further onto his face, seeping into his mouth and covering the white, bulging eye. Green mold bursts from his mouth in a noxious plume.

"No! Bishop!"

She throws herself at the Wall, clawing and tearing and yanking, screaming and crying and shrieking his name, as he is drawn deeper and deeper within. She calls for his help but he does not move.

**III.**

The gargoyle couriers huddled together as though afraid of her, afraid of him, afraid of Safiya, and afraid of the great bear god. Their vacant eyes stared at her for a long time, perhaps confused by her question or perhaps _afraid_ to answer it.

"What happened to the others?" she asked again, stepping toward them. They shrank further back, shrank closer together. "You took me from the Sanctum after the King of Shadows fell. _What_ happened to my _friends_?"

"Dead," one of them hissed. He looked at her, saw how she froze, saw how her skin paled.

"A-all of them?" she choked, voice hoarse.

"We… we don't know," another gargoyle replied. "We were to save you and you alone."

"The dwarf, he gave chase. He almost caught us, too. He was stupid and we led him away, so he did not get you. He lived."

Hope was momentarily alight in her eyes.

"The dark one followed us into the shadow, but the Mistress took care of him, yes she did."

"Passed the mage girl, fiery mage girl, head smashed in by a rock. Only saw the robes and blood."

"Druid pinned under the boulder, yes. No escape."

"The gnome and his construct crushed when the ceiling caved in."

"Of the others, we do not know."

"We do not know. You were our mission. We saved you."

He watched her stumble backward, skin as pale as the moon, eyes vacant. Had she heard a thing they'd said? Safiya called to her but she did not respond. She threw her arms out to the side to steady herself, walked on wobbly legs into the next room. And then he heard her retch, heard the splash of vomit on the shadowy ground. He looked at Safiya, at her sad expression, and then back at the doorframe where she had disappeared. She gagged and hurled again, over and over, as cries of agony worked their way between expulsions of bile.

He slowly walked into the room to see her bent over, sobbing, and then she collapsed into the puddle beneath her. She slumped against the wall, head thunking into it, and her body went limp as though all of the muscles beneath her skin had suddenly vanished.

**IV.**

He is at a table with Safiya, Kaelyn, Magda, and the other actors of the Veil. They are eating and drinking, but there is no lively conversation to be had. There is no conversation at all. She is in the next room, locked in the dark, lying on a bed. She is wailing in her sleep, sobbing. He knows that in the morning, her sheets will be soaked with tears and sweat, like last night. She is feverish, trapped in melancholy.

He finally gets up and tries to sleep, to walk her dreams and comfort her. He promised her once that he could help ease her horrid dreams—dreams once about the King of Shadows and the insatiable hunger lurking inside of her. These new dreams are different and he fears walking them. They are painful even to him.

When he enters the Dreamscape, he is so horribly cold that he considers going back. Her dreams are dark and painful, terrifying and lonely. He tries to find her, to grow a garden in this darkness, but every tree and every bush that takes root quickly twists into dead branches and bare thorns. He summons all of his affection and desire, but it cannot bloom within her. If he could only love her for a moment, he could ease her sleeping.

He looks out into the void of her dreams and sees her standing there, stark in the bleak landscape. He sees her red hair and pale skin and lavender eyes—a washed out version of her true self—but he barely recognizes her. The hatred on her face startles him. The glare in her eyes disheartens him. She knows what he has tried to do for her. She has seen him and rejected him and casts him out.

For the first time in all of his life, he feels guilt and shame. He feels like a violator. He leaves and hopes she will forgive him when she wakes.

He opens his eyes to the darkness of the room. He listens to her sobs.

**V.**

The fire popped and crackled as she stared at it, night encroaching around them. They were surrounded by a sphere of light from the fire—a warm spotlight amid the dark unknown of the forest under the moon. It made him feel trapped inside a peaceful bubble, and as long as they were in that bubble—that warm, campfire light—together, then the world would ever turn toward the hopeful and the happy.

"Are you thinking of your friends?" he asked her, his low voice like a shout in that consuming silence.

"I miss them," she replied. "I wonder how they're doing. I wonder if they made it out of the Mere alive."

"What do you believe?"

"That they are alive. That I will see them again."

"You were close."

"Very. Each one of them… from different walks of life, for different reasons… put aside their prejudices and goals to help me. Whether they recognized the threat of the King of Shadows or at least held some love for me, they stood with me until the very end. They endured so much."

"Tell me."

Her pale, amethyst eyes looked at him with a twinkle of mystery. Her red hair fell in points that framed her face and hung in her eyes. No one knew how long she had been lying in the barrow before Safiya found her, but her once-short hair had grown out into a mop. A woman in Mulsantir had cut it for her, but it was a trim and nothing more. She was nowhere near as beautiful as he, but he could not stop looking at her. He could not take his eyes off of her for even a moment, hanging onto every flick of her gaze in his direction.

She told him about the dwarf Khelgar—the would-be monk—and about the tiefling thief Neeshka whose heart was as pure as her fingers were sticky. There was Elanee, the druid, who meant well but rarely understood the laws beyond the woods. Qara was a powerful sorcerer and spoiled brat at constant odds with the wizened but egotistical wizard Sand. Grobnar—over-talkative gnome, somewhat spacey, very talented bard and mechanic—rebuilt a powerful Blade Construct that fought for them. Casavir, noble paladin, fought bravely at every turn and only realized his feelings when he was chest-deep in them. Zhjaeve, a githzerai, had sworn to follow her. Shandra—she spoke of her with sadness in her eyes—had blamed all of her misfortune on her leader and yet still sacrificed her life to save her. Ammon Jerro, bastard that he was, was an "end justifies the means" sort of man, and it had cost him dearly, cost the rest of them as well.

"Even now," she explained, "I do not think I have forgiven him for what he did and what he became." She poked the fire with a stick and he reached to put another log onto the fire. "Then there was Bishop, a ranger from the north. When my uncle's tavern was attacked, he reacted purely out of self-defense. As soon as we learned we had to go into Luskan territory, Duncan called in his favor and Bishop was forced to guide us."

"Forced?" he echoed.

"Yes. He is angry, bitter, jaded—so much so that it is a part of him now, inseparable from the whole. He was rude and cruel, cold, and hard." There was a hint of a smile—the most of one he had ever seen on her lips. "In spite of how closed off he was, we got along. We became friends. He would never admit that to you." She prodded angry coals until they took fire once again. "He did everything he could to push me away—callous seduction, insisting he didn't care, reminders that he couldn't be trusted… but he remained right at my side, always."

"What happened with this ranger?" he asked, and realized suddenly that he didn't want to know. He didn't want to know anything about this ranger. But she answered anyway.

"He betrayed me."

**VI.**

"Bishop!" she screams, clawing at the Wall. "I'm going to get you out of here! Just hold on!"

"Don't…" he coughs up a green cloud of mold. "I made my bed… I'll lie in it…"

"No! No, you didn't! I forgave you! I _forgive_ you! Please, help me…"

Her cry for aid is a whimper of desperation, but he can't help her. He won't touch the Wall. It terrifies him. So he just stands there. He watches as she claws at the mold, as her fingers sink into the blubbery flesh of this living Wall and tears sloppy chunks out of it.

"Cara," Bishop whispers. She lifts her head, meets his eyes, holds her breath. "Don't…"

She chokes on a sob, shakes her head. "No," she tells him and resumes her frantic digging. "Help me!" she screams and fresh tears pour out of her.

He stands there dumbly. The man called Bishop looks at him with all the hatred of the Rashemi combined and multiplied, and he sees feral possessiveness in that one good eye. It makes him feel far away from her, from this man in the Wall, as though he should be the one sinking into the Wall and Bishop standing by her side.

"Who is he?" Bishop asks her. "Casavir's replacement? If I see him in the Wall, I'll give him your best…"

"Don't do this!" she shouts. "Hang on… just hang on… I'll get you out of here! I'll get you out!" And then she turns and looks at him and screams, "_Help me_!"

But he can't move. And she won't stop digging into those quivering lumps of diseased flesh possessively massing around him. The Wall shudders, convulses, and there is a horrific snap of bones. Bishop is sucked deeper in, his screams of pain nearly overtaking the crunch of breaking bones. She screams, too, momentarily paralyzed by the horror. This fleshy plague-mold crawls further onto his face, seeps into his mouth, covers his bad eye.

"Bishop!" she shrieks. She throws herself at the Wall, clawing and tearing and yanking, screaming and crying and shrieking his name, as he is drawn deeper and deeper within. "I won't lose you!"

"Cara…" he groans breathlessly, painfully. "I… saw you… in the Wall…"

"But I'm here! I'm right here!"

"If you're… in the Wall… let me stay… with you…"

Her broken sobs and screams twist at his heart as this man's words drive her into a frenzy. And then she is digging so ferociously that the mold cannot keep up with her. It is a battle between her and the Wall, a battle over this man's soul. Desperation, determination, panic, something that he cannot identify—they overtake her. Her eyes are on fire. She will not relent. She will not give in. Everything in her movements exclaims, "you cannot have him!"

"Ca…ra…" he rasps.

And then something breaks and a lumpy mass drops out of the Wall and onto the ground. She collapses. She has done it. She has freed him.

**VII.**

Her skin was as pale as the moon, eyes as vacant as a corpse. She stumbled from the room, barely able to stand as her energy rapidly depleted. She retched and bile splashed on the ground.

_Her head was smashed in with a rock._

He looked at Safiya, at her sad expression, and then back through the door where she had disappeared. She gagged and hurled, over and over, as cries of agony worked their way between expulsions of vomit.

_He and the Construct were crushed beneath collapsing ceiling._

He slowly walked into the room. She was bent over, sobbing, with saliva dripping from her gaping mouth. Every intake of breath was a high-pitched whistle, as though she were being choked, choked on her own bodily fluids.

_She was pinned under a boulder, couldn't escape._

She collapsed into the puddle beneath her and slumped against the wall. He came to stand in front of her as the residual tremors of her agony worked their way through her nervous system.

_A falling pillar ripped him in half._

Drool and vomit lingered on her chin, tears flowed silently out of her vacant eyes. She looked utterly hollow. He cringed away from the ugliness while simultaneously longed to wipe her face and set her on her feet.

_Her every step was true and she nearly escaped, but the tunnel collapsed, trapping her in the ruin._

Safiya, Kaelyn, and Okku quietly came into the room and stared, all unsure what to do or say. He crouched before her, the smell of bile piercing his nostrils. She didn't look at him. She looked through him.

_He held the door open as long as he could and then his back gave out._

"Cara?" he said quietly.

At first, she said nothing. She did not look at him. She did not move. She just sat there as though she were dead herself.

"Take me back," she finally whispered. "Take me back to the barrow. Leave me there."

"Cara!" Safiya gasped in disbelief.

"Take me back," she mumbled lifelessly, "and leave me. Let me die there. I want to die."

"Cara, _no_!"

"I want to die…"

**VIII.**

They camped on the beaches of Lakeshore to heal wounds sustained after fighting their way out of Coveya Kurg'annis. Kaelyn stood in the distance on first watch, white wings reflecting the moon so that they would always know where she walked. Okku and Safiya slumbered. He was supposed to sleep, too, but he could not. His watch was not for hours, but his eyes would not close. He did not want to see her dreams.

She slept and woke, and he watched her do this. He watched her clutch that gem to her chest, saw how she caressed it. Her eyes looked sunken into her skull, the flesh bruised purple and yellow from her body's despair. The skin beneath her eyes was red and raw from tears. She was thin, colorless, a wisp of a creature. She was tragic—oh so tragic—and somehow it made her beautiful.

She stroked the gem in those waking moments, held it close when she slept. He wondered what she thought of and wondered what she dreamed. He could not bring himself to see. His curiosity waxed and waned with the memory of her prying the sludge off of Bishop's body, finding that her fingers sank into him like wet clay. Her eyes burned brightly then as she summoned the spiriteater inside of her—commanded it, controlled it—and gathered that fallen man's soul into her hand. She shaped it, trapped it, rescued it. As she drew his soul out of his body, the form melted into nothingness, a golem held together by plague-mold.

He lifted his eyes as hers opened again. Her shaky finger gently touched the gem in her palm and a faint pulse of light brightened, reflecting in her pupils. For the first time since she had discovered the fate of her friends and pushed everyone out of her heart, he saw hope in her amethyst eyes.

**IX.**

She poked the fire with a stick as he reached for another log and tossed it onto the embers. There was a hint of a smile on her lips for the briefest of moments.

"Bishop was a ranger from the north, forced to guide us into Luskan. He did everything he could to push me away but he remained right at my side, always. He acted as though he resented me, but his arrows never missed and his back never left mine in a fight. We fought well together, he and I. I believed his curses and rebuffs no more than bluster, for he protected me as he did his own life."

"Did he?"

"Yes. He once suggested we run away together—to forget the King of Shadows and Neverwinter and the trial, and we could be two rangers lost in the woods until a hero destroyed the evil of the Mere or we were consumed by it. I asked him if he was being serious or just making one of his snide comments. He said he didn't know, and asked what I would say if it was an offer."

"And what did you say?"

There it was again, that hint of a smile. He wished she would smile fully. He longed to see that from this girl who was nowhere near as beautiful as he.

"I said yes."

That surprised him so much that he sat up straight, eyes widening in surprise. He watched her stir the angry coals into a brighter blaze. When she looked at him, her eyes reflected fire.

"Ah, you warm my heart, you really do," she growled in a deep voice, the words holding a hint of sarcasm and a hint of sincerity—her imitation of this ranger, he guessed. "But he only smirked at me and sipped his drink, never budging."

"What happened with this ranger?" he asked just as he realized that he didn't want to know.

"He betrayed me," she told him and returned to stoking the fire. "On the eve of battle, he disabled the gate mechanism to let the horde in. He fought bravely with me until they breached the courtyard. Then he revealed his betrayal. 'Stay up on the wall and you just might survive this,' he said. I refused to not fight. 'Hells, stay up on the wall!' And he left."

"He walked with you all this time and then abandoned you?" he asked, snarling. Her story left a bad taste in his mouth. He did not understand the calm expression she wore. "What a vile creature to toss aside trust and friendship to save his own skin."

"He feared being bound to anything or anyone… so he tried to throw it all away. He was already bound, so he did the only thing he could think to free himself: destroy the thing he was tied to."

"You understand him?" he balked.

"Yes, I do."

"And you don't blame him?"

"No." She looked at him again, her eyes on fire. "I forgave him."

**X.**

There was something alight in her. It was inspiring and terrifying. Where once she had been weak, now she was strong. She still wore the signs of that darkness—the pale skin, the dark circles around her eyes, the wild and unstable gleam in her gaze—but she marched forward with untiring resolve. They had to beg her to stop before she would consent. It was almost as though she did not remember they were traveling with her.

With the soul gem around her neck, she was a different woman. She was a woman with purpose, not like the lump sitting in her own vomit that wished to die, the limp thing crying in her bed every night as she was forced to carry on. That woman had not cared whether or not the spiriteater devoured her. That woman had nearly surrendered to the hunger.

This woman, with that soul gem around her neck, was on a mission. What kind of mission? He could not say. He doubted her motivations were to end the curse of the spiriteater, for her determination had come to her the moment she had pulled Bishop's spirit out of the Wall. She would not speak of it, not to him or anyone. She had pushed them out, pushed them away. Once she had learned of her friends' fate, she had forced herself to stop feeling.

Perhaps she thought that being close to her might bring them to their doom. Perhaps, she merely did not want to be tied down to anymore painful feelings. He wanted to change her heart, to make her happy once more. He wanted to show her the strength in these bonds—a surprise even for him who was used to the loneliness of solitude.

"We must stop," Safiya said, gasping for breath. "We will reach Mulsantir tomorrow and Thay is a quick trip through the shadow realm. For now, we must rest. We will need our strength for Thay."

She stopped, looked back, looked as though she didn't know if she would come back. He saw the flexing of her muscles beneath her sleeves and pants, saw how she struggled not to keep going. She hung her head, the soul gem around her neck a great weight she constantly held up. She came back.

They made a fire, ate dinner, talked. She said nothing, picked at her food, and retired early. She held the gem in her fist. She stroked it when she thought no one was looking. She clutched it to her heart as though it was all that kept it beating.

**XI.**

Drool and vomit was splattered on her chin, tears flowing silently out of her vacant eyes. She was hollow, ugly, pitiable. He wanted to hold her tight. He crouched before her, ignored the smell of vomit. She didn't look at him. She looked through him.

"Cara?"

She said nothing. She did not look at him. She did not move. She sat there as though she were dead.

"Take me back," she whispered. "Take me back to the barrow. Leave me there."

"Cara!" Safiya gasped in disbelief.

"Take me back," she mumbled lifelessly, "and leave me. Let me die there. I want to die."

"Cara, _no_!"

"I want to die…"

They watched her wallow, unmoving, until Safiya finally tossed her staff to the ground, took hold of her arms by the crook of her shoulders, and began to heave her. Kaelyn dropped her shield and mace and rushed to help. It was like lifting a dead weight. She refused to be moved.

"I won't let you sit here and die!" the wizard exclaimed through gritted teeth. "Get up, Cara! Get! Up!"

She hung lifelessly from their arms, slid across the floor in their struggle. He gaped at her helplessly, desperate to penetrate her agony and somehow comfort her.

"Get up, Cara! You cannot give up now!"

"There is too much at stake!"

"We must end this curse once and for all! The world depends on it!"

Voices. Voices. So many voices, and who said what? He could hardly tell. He was lost in her face, at the deadness of her being. Suddenly she looked at him, a pleading gaze riddled with fear and confusion. It scared him so much that he nearly lost his balance.

"Must, I must… what must I do?" she rasped. "I must find a hidden trail… a hidden trail and camp out for a year or two." Her vacant gaze drifted across the room. "I don't care about the world…" she mumbled. "I wanted to save it once… but everyone I wanted to save is dead… Take me back to the barrow. Leave me there. I want to die."

He came forward and grasped her shoulders, forced her to meet his eyes. "But they want you to live. That is why they died for you."

Tears leaked out of her eyes and she frowned at him, shook her head. _No_, he thought, _you're right. That wasn't fair of me. But I, too, want you to live._ And now she could not die.

**XII.**

He watches like a forgotten statue in the room.

His body lay on the table, cold and dead. There is a thin layer of ice on his clothes. He is a handsome man—or was, when he was alive. Short, brown hair, a square jaw with the thin, prickly makings of a beard. He has a lean body, strong, tall. He cannot see his eyes. He thinks that he is a handsome man, but not nearly as handsome as he is.

She is leaning over him, holding the gem, returning it to his body. She waits anxiously, fists clenched, expression contorted with hope of fear. The color slowly returns to his body and then he coughs, convulses, and the ice crunches, sloughs off of his body. She reaches out to steady him, to hold him up. Just as she put life back into him, he has put life back into her. There is life in her again as she grasps him.

"Bishop!" she whispers, and she has forgotten everyone else in the room. He coughs, disoriented. He shivers. She rips her cloak off and wraps it around him. "Bishop…"

He looks up at her. His eyes are amber. "Cara… what did… how?" His voice is hoarse but deep.

"I saved you. I brought you back…"

"But the Wall…"

"I don't care about the Wall! It can't have you!"

"It's what I deserve," he tells her, and in his eyes there is affection. "You know it's true. I betrayed you… I believed in nothing… I should have… believed in you."

"_I_ believe in _you_," she says. "That's why I'll never give up on you."

Bishop reaches out and touches her cheek. It is a simple gesture, but there is so much feeling in it. She closes her eyes, holds her breath, goes completely still as though that one touch has overwhelmed her. She covers his icy hand with her own and their fingers twist together. He shivers as he stares at her, gently rocks back and forth. Their faces are somehow inches apart. When did they come so close together?

"Forsaking the gods… what do you want from me?" he asks her, thumb brushing her cheek.

"I won't ask you for anything… so you can deny me nothing."

He smirks and it seems to take her breath away. "Smart girl…" he mutters. Then he kisses her, and she kisses him back. They hold each other, and together they are so beautiful, more beautiful than anything he has ever seen.

**XIII.**

As the fire blazed anew and the moon roamed into the far end of the sky, her story wound down. He hesitated before asking the question he needed answered, realizing only too late that, deep down, he did not want to know.

"What happened with this ranger?"

"On the eve of battle, he disabled the gate mechanism to let the horde in. He fought bravely with me until they breached the courtyard and then he revealed his betrayal. But I refused to give up. 'Hells, stay up on the wall, girl!' he begged me. And then he left."

"He abandoned you?" he balked then snarled. "What a vile creature to toss aside trust and friendship to save his own skin."

"He feared being bound to anything or anyone, so he tried to throw it away. But he was already bound, so he did the only thing he could think to free himself: destroy the thing he was tied to."

He frowned at her as he came to understand the meaning in her words. "You do not blame him."

"No." She looked at him, her eyes on fire. "When I faced the King of Shadows, I faced Bishop, too. And I forgave him. He came back to stand by my side. We destroyed the King of Shadows together."

He wanted to ask why—why he betrayed her, why she forgave him, why he returned to her side! But suddenly he knew the answer—the one answer to all of the questions—and he was certain he felt the same way.

_I love you_, he thought as he watched her stoke the fire.

_Thank you,_ _but my heart belongs to another._

_Who is this other?_

_He is a cruel and bitter ranger… with a soul as dark as my own._

She leaned forward to adjust the log on the coals. When it was arranged just so, he laid another thick piece on top for her. She poked and prodded the embers and then laid her stick down. She wrapped her arms around her knees and locked them there, holding one wrist between her slender fingers.

"Do you believe you will see him again?"

"Yes," she said, and a full smile bloomed on her face, her eyes alight with happiness and with hope. "I will see him again."


End file.
